


Ashes

by DracoFidus



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: AU, Angst, Gen, Podfic Available
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-07
Updated: 2013-08-07
Packaged: 2017-12-22 17:02:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,076
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/915777
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DracoFidus/pseuds/DracoFidus
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A wander through Uthers mind after his release at the end of season 3.<br/>'Uthers world was dark now, his eyes clouded by pain. Before, he had imagined that the endless grey was because the light in the dungeon was limited, but he had learned it was because the world had burned. All that was left was ash, a deep grey ash from which no light, no colour, could escape.'</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ashes

**Author's Note:**

> I may have gone a it poetical at some points, you have been warned.  
> Available as a podfic here - http://dracofidus.tumblr.com/post/57647481151/i-recorded-my-fic-ashes-for-you-guys-i-hope-you

Uthers world was dark now, his eyes clouded by pain. Before, he had imagined that the endless grey was because the light in the dungeon was limited, but he had learned it was because the world had burned. All that was left was ash, a deep grey ash from which no light, no colour, could escape. And everything was burned, the pillars that stood in a mockery of his kingdom would crumble under his touch. Pendragon red meant nothing any more. He knew it was there, in his clothes, his pillows, his drapes. He fancied he could smell it, a tang of fire and wine and blood, all he had wasted his rule on. Would this be all he was remembered for? Was this it? A colour he could no-longer see marked by his name in history books. His legacy a herecy banished by beating hearts and sent by learned scholars to the shelf in the library marked ' _Failure_ '; to a page in a novel marked ' _Tyrant_ '. Would his hands be depicted in Pendragon red like they were on the day Ygraine died? Would his soul be shown as a raging fire, a pyre upon which he sent children to their deaths? Or would he be forgotten entirely, as easily as he had forgotten to see colour?

He wondered, some days, if he was wrong. If the world stood exactly as it was and the stones did not crumble under his touch. He wondered if, perhaps, he was the one that had burned. He wondered if his eyes were blocked by ashes and that was why colour had gone. He wondered if his heart had burned, he kept it safe just in case. For burned things only hold their shape as long as they aren't touched. So Uther hid his broken heart. He buried it deep within his chest, surrounded by the fires of his conflicted soul and he hoped that Arthur would see why he couldn't bring it out. But still he sat by the window, hoping that perhaps the winds would scatter his ash. Hoping his form would dissolve and blow away on the winds into the sky he knew was blue. Some days he dug out his heart and looked into it's core and in it he found colour; the blue of Arthurs eyes and the red of the roses he had given Ygraine on the day he proposed; so different to Pendragon red, a red of love and passion and sunsets, not fire and wine and blood. But most of all he saw gold. The gold of the hair of the ones he loved, the shining crown that sheathed the head of his wife, the head of his son. This was the only colour he could keep after he had hidden his heart once more, it was Arthurs colour, and whenever he entered the room, Uther saw gold.

At night, in the dark, Uther could pretend the world was as it always was and that ash was only found in his fireplace. He remembered, after Ygraines death, dreaming that she was there beside him and waking up to realise she was not. This fantasy of colour was like that. He could lie in bed and close his eyes and imagine the colours of the canopy above. He knew them, in his mind he could see them, but in his heart they were gone. One night he realised that the pink he remembered was not pink at all, but grey and the colours he had poured into his hands were ash. He realised, in that moment, that he was not seeing colour, he had no colour, there was no colour, only gold and the scent of Pendragon red. And so his nights were lost to dreams of grey and gold and the shadows of memory crept forward. He woke to screams and did not realise they were his until the salt of his tears crept into his open mouth. He had dreamt he was being burned alive by his inflamed soul. He had dreamt Morgana held the flame. Perhaps it was true. Perhaps she had crawled inside him in that stinking dungeon and set fire to his soul. Perhaps she had laughed as it burned him alive. Or perhaps that was a lie, created by his tortured mind to fill the gaps in his memory. Perhaps she had burned the world. Perhaps she had burned him. All Uther knew was ash.

Colours were gone from his memory now, like the creep of desert sands the ash had spread through his mind, and gold was the only colour that shone through. He could no longer remember what orange was supposed to look like, or blue, though he knew it was the colour of the sky. He could still smell Pendragon red however, taunting him in his dreams. The colour that made him, lying unseen, teasing through the ever strengthening scent of fire and wine and blood. And, of course, he could still see gold, though it shone a little dimmer every day. He feared the day it vanished completely. Uther didn't bother looking into his heart any more, its colours had gone and now all it did was remind him how little Arthur knew of it's contents. It was useless to him now, a pillar of ash in a fragile shape. Uther left his heart on the window, and he watched as the winds took it apart, finding perverse satisfaction in knowing that he was right, the world hadn't burned, he had. Without his heart, however, gold faded faster than ever.

One day Uther woke and peered around him at the grey. There, beside his bed, was a man, it was only when he looked closer that Uther realised it was Arthur. He had lost gold. And so all colour left the world of Uther Pendragon. He knew, then, that he was gone. His tears streamed silently as he began to let go. The wind rose and King Uther Pendragon blew away like his heart. There was no colour anymore, only the scent of Pendragon red. So Uther left the world as he had inhabited it, with the stench of fire and wine and blood. Gaius stood by him with Arthur and they could do nothing as his pulse ebbed, his breathing slowed and Uther stopped. When the final speck of ash blew away Gaius stepped away from the body. The King was dead.


End file.
